Teaching for Change Bookstore at Busboys and Poets welcomes David F. Krugler to discuss and sign his new book, 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back
1919, The Year of Racial Violence recounts African Americans' brave stand against a cascade of mob attacks in the United States after World War I. The emerging New Negro identity, which prized unflinching resistance to second-class citizenship, further inspired veterans and their fellow black citizens. In city after city Washington, DC; Chicago; Charleston; and elsewhere black men and women took up arms to repel mobs that used lynching, assaults, and other forms of violence to protect white supremacy; yet, authorities blamed blacks for the violence, leading to mass arrests and misleading news coverage. Refusing to yield, African Americans sought accuracy and fairness in the courts of public opinion and the law. This is the first account of this three-front fight in the streets, in the press, and in the courts against mob violence during one of the worst years of racial conflict in U.S. history.
David F. Krugler is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville.
